A Maniac Named Doug

Last issue I revealed how our local maniac stumbled onto an extremely effective strategy in tournament play. The wording here has double meaning as Doug was usually plastered at this point in the tournament as a result of his intake of alcohol. While everyone else was tightening up their play hoping that someone else would get unlucky and bomb out, Doug was stealing pot after pot and increasing his stack size even more. It didn't matter to Doug whether he won or lost and as a result he had no fear. This made his aggressive play even more effective than usual and doubly so in tournaments (at least on the sober and reasonably minded players).

There are several strategies that one can utilize to make it deep in a tournament ( the structure of the tournament does influence these strategies ). The two most common styles that are successful in most tournaments are loose aggressive play and tight aggressive play. There are definite advantages and disadvantages to each style of play and certainly one's own demeanor and personality influences our own style of play.. No matter what style you do choose to play the biggest factor in a tournament that looms large on everyone's mind is survival. This can be done by either gathering a lot of chips by being willing to gamble and risk your tournament life frequently early on or by playing a controlled game waiting to catch a big hand or some good luck at just the right time.

Tom McEvoy and Dan Harrington are two well known authors who advocate the more conservative style of play. Whereas Doyle Brunson and players like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, and Tuan Le are well known for their loose aggressive style. Even among these players there are some unique strategies, abilities, and understanding of their own game that increases the success they have with the style of play they choose . For instance Dan Harrington has the ability to pull off a successful bluff at a much higher rate of success as a result of his reputation of only playing aggressively when he has the goods. Anyone who saw him succeed with a big bluff at the final table in 2004 to win a nice pot can appreciate his ability to read players and situations extremely well and use his knowledge and abilities when the time is "right" to do so. He has excellent deductive reasoning skills and he uses this ability to key on when he should risk all of his chips on a gamble and when to lay low and wait for a better opportunity. Although he rarely makes a big bluff, he also realizes that he has to accumulate chips to stick around and still have a stack that is still effective enough to deter the other opponents from stealing him blind.

On the other side of the fence Daniel Negreanu has the ability to fold a big hand based on his read of a situation. He is usually willing to gamble it up but only when he has the right odds and usually also has enough chips where he won't get busted even if he does lose the confrontation. He also has an excellent post flop game that allows him to accumulate a lot of chips early on in a tournament. By accumulating chips he also survives the later stages when one has little choice except to gamble it up. When the tournament does get to the later stages his strategy also changes. Rather then relying strictly on his post flop abilities which become less effective, he also has learned how to contend with a lot of players who are all in before the flop as a result of the chip compression that naturally occurs with the ever rising blinds and antes. Next time I will finish up on the effectiveness of a loose aggressive strategy and a maniac named Doug.